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Scald burns are the most common type of serious burn in young children. Reminding parents to lower hot-water heater temperatures to ≤120°F to prevent scald burns has been a key preventive measure; now, most scalds in children do not involve hot tap water. To determine the leading causes of scald burns among young children, investigators examined data from 104 patients younger than 5 years who were admitted to a Chicago hospital for scald burns in 2002 through 2004. Nineteen children with intentional burns and 14 with tap-water burns were excluded.
The most common mechanisms of injury by non–tap-water scalds were children pulling containers on themselves (39%), someone else spilling a hot substance on the child (15%), children climbing to rea…